Reviews on Facebook: what businesses need to know

What are Facebook reviews?

Facebook lets customers review businesses from their company page or upon checking in at a location, and rate the business 1-5 stars. This review appears on the business’ Facebook page in the Reviews tab.

Why are Facebook reviews important?

Ever wondered how Facebook decides what appears in your News Feed? Pages are displayed based on their EdgeRank, the rankings system determined by Facebook’s confidential algorithm. EdgeRank is calculated based on: Affinity (the interaction between a Facebook user and a brand), Weight (the importance of that action), and Time Decay (how long ago the Edge was created).

One major factor in EdgeRank is star ratings, which affect both affinity and weight. Overall brand visibility and organic reach are determined largely by EdgeRank, which in turn is impacted by star ratings.

In addition to giving your business more visibility, having Facebook reviews encourages other customers to rate your business. They also build brand transparency by showing opinions of real people rather than plain old marketing statements.

Get notifications for Facebook reviews

It’s easy to enable real-time notifications for new reviews posted on your Facebook page. This way you can respond to all reviews, solving problems instantly and thanking happy customers.

To turn on new review notifications, go to “Settings” in your administrator dashboard.

Select “Get a notification each time there is activity on your Page or an important Page update” and make sure all notifications are turned on under “Edit your notification settings”.

You can also select whether or not you want an email sent for each new review in addition to the Facebook notification. Even better, review management services like BirdEye automatically send SMS or email notifications to relevant employees whenever new reviews are posted about your business.

Benefits of responding to Facebook reviews

Actively responding to reviews on Facebook — and any other review site — is crucial to maintaining a strong business reputation. Prompt, thoughtful responses allow you to:

Prove to customers that you value their feedback

Solve problems instantly to prevent a social media crisis

Increase engagement and boost EdgeRank even further

Can I remove reviews and ratings from my Facebook page?

You can disable reviews and ratings from your Facebook page, but we recommend keeping ratings turned on, and just managing reviews consistently. It’s hard to have a great online reputation without reviews on a major site like Facebook. If you’re worried about bad reviews, remember that great responses can even make negative reviews reflect positively on your brand.

Want to learn more? Check out our guide on responding to negative reviews.